Single mother sent home nine hours after birth

One year after she coped with her abrupt release from Sunshine Hospital, Viki cannot get her baby daughter booked in for a developmental check. Photo: Pat Scala

CROWDED hospitals are sending women home just hours after giving birth, despite them wanting to stay longer.

New mothers are also being discharged without enough help to care for themselves and their babies, forcing some to reach crisis point, maternal and child health experts say.

One Melbourne mother, who only wanted to be known as Viki, said despite receiving excellent care at Sunshine Hospital last year, she was asked to go home nine hours after giving birth because the hospital was too full.

''They said, 'You know how we said you could stay overnight, well, actually, we've just had some new admissions and we have nowhere to put people.' I thought there must be people who need the beds more than I do, so I'll go,'' she said.

The single mother went home to care for her infant and 10-year-old-child without assistance and had a midwife visit her the next day. While she coped, Viki said the hospital needed more funding for services.

''It will reach a point where it gets unsafe,'' she said.

One year later, Viki cannot get her baby into the local maternal and child health nurse for a developmental check.

''They said they were completely booked for six weeks and that they don't want to book any further out than six weeks because they don't know how many babies they'll have at that time, so it's pretty bad,'' she said. ''With my first baby I can remember being able to drop in any time if you had a problem or a question and now you can't get an appointment.''

Terry O'Bryan, chief executive of Isis Primary Care - the group funded by Brimbank City Council to provide maternal and child health services in Melbourne's west - said the waiting list was a reflection of inadequate funding. ''There are waiting times for almost all of our services now and that's because we haven't had commensurate increases in funding for the population rises we've had over the last decade.''

Experts said many postnatal services were under pressure in Victoria, including hospital breastfeeding clinics and child and family health services that run programs for parents struggling with unsettled babies.

Professor of women's health at Monash University and the Jean Hailes Foundation Jane Fisher said women were waiting up to three months to get help for problems that could have been prevented with earlier education and care.

While some women could afford to pay for private services, she said research found many new mothers were taking unsettled babies to hospital emergency departments because they were desperate.

She said the government needed to boost community care in the earliest weeks of a baby's life to prevent problems from developing.

''There's a huge need … and people with the highest needs are concentrated in the areas of greatest disadvantage and that's where the services are really stretched,'' she said.

Dr Lisa Amir, a breastfeeding expert at La Trobe University, said although Victorian women received better care than women in other countries, breastfeeding services had deteriorated in recent years, with the Royal Women's Hospital closing its breastfeeding clinic to women who had not given birth there.

''We need more of a focus on postnatal care,'' she said.

A spokeswoman for the Victorian government said it was about to release new guidelines to improve postnatal care and had funded two labour and delivery rooms to be added to Sunshine Hospital.

A spokeswoman for Sunshine Hospital would not comment on Viki's case, but said: ''Each mother and baby is assessed on a case-by-case basis and discharged from the maternity unit when it is safe for them to return home.''